Buhari Directs Governors To Decongest Prisons

President Muhammadu Buhari has directed state
governors across the country to ensure the reduction of the number of prison
inmates in their various states.

Kaduna
State Governor Malam Nasir el-Rufai, who disclosed this while on a working
visit to the Kaduna convict prison, said the president’s directive was in the
spirit of decongesting the prisons across the country.

El-Rufai
said, “Our leader, President Muhammadu Buhari, has directed all governors to
visit prisons and ensure that we reduce to the barest minimum those that have
spent many years awaiting trial in our courts.

“It
is injustice for a person to be kept for a long time in the name of awaiting
trial. This is why President Buhari directed all governors to undertake such
visits so that, working together with the Ministry of Justices and the Prison
authorities, we’ll ensure we do something about it.”

He
assured that the state government, despite its financial challenges, would do
its best to ensure that the people prison for wrong reasons and are awaiting
trial get justice.

Receiving
the governor, the state controller of prison, Mr. Abubakar Garba, noted that
the convict prison, established in 1915 with the capacity of 547, is now
housing over 1,000 inmates.

Disclosing
that about 114 inmates were condemned criminals, with 11 of them citizens of
Kaduna State, he appealed to the governor to commute the death sentences of 11
inmates of Kaduna State origin to life imprisonment. He also revealed that the
prison had only two functional vans for conveying about 800 awaiting trial
inmates, which he said, portends danger to people of the state.